MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — It’s Art Basel Miami Beach time. The land and water traffic from Miami to Miami Beach and Biscayne Bay hasn’t surprised locals or tourists, but after 23 years of it, the art still has.
The international contemporary art fair’s new Zero 10 digital art section featured “Regular Animals” by Mike “Beeple” Winkelmann, four-legged robots with the realistic heads of tech moguls. The Wall Street Journal reported “poop out prints.”
At $100,000 each, the works sold quickly during the fair’s VIP preview on Wednesday at the Miami Beach Convention Center. Patricia M. Oleszko, an artist born in Michigan, said exploring the fair was exciting.
“It’s the joy of discovery, and it’s such a diversity, that’s the beauty of a big and encompassing art fair,” said Oleszko, while standing near her “hat” collection and massive inflatable sculptures on display at the fair’s Survey sector.
There was a lot of movement. While a German art dealer sold a 2016 abstract painting by Gerhard Richter for $5.5 million, and a 1967 portrait by Alice Neel for $3.3 million, a few buyers used ETH, and a gallery distributed free NFTs, according to Art Basel’s sales report.
The Weinstein Gallery, established in California in the 90s, was proud of works by Frida Kahlo’s 1938 “Autorretrato en Miniatura” at the fair’s booth J12. It’s priced at about $15 million. The buyer may just be in town this time.
The massive yachts with little helicopters had docked at Museum Park in Downtown Miami. Vanity Fair reported that the tourists on the prowl this weekend included Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google, whose net worth, according to Forbes, surpasses $243 billion.
Tylar Pelton, a marketer based in Atlanta who visits regularly for her work with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s Teremana Tequila, described the energy in Miami during the fair as electric.
“I feel like inspiration is just what Art Basel is all about and what this week is about,” Pelton said. “You’ll leave inspired.”
There were critics. Annie Armstrong -- a New York City-based ARTnews columnist who described a floating “used condom” as part of the “trash-filled ocean”-- wrote that Art Basel Miami Beach “could never really be a luxury experience, like its sister fairs.”
The fair, which has attracted a network of satellite fairs and exhibits that are not connected to Art Basel, opens from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday at 1901 Convention Center Drive.
Children are free. Admission for seniors, veterans, and students was $68. General admission was $88. The Design Miami combination ticket was $130, and the weekend ticket was $160.
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